Soldier

NAME:	Kunzite
ELEMENT:	Energy/Ice Manipulation

Powers

• Ice Manipulation: Kunzite uses his ice powers primarily with his sword. The ice blade allows him to focus this ability to send ice blasts from the blade. While it is a powerful ability, he lacks the finesse that comes with control. When he's not using his sword to focus it, he's limited to using this for big attacks. He has the ability to freeze entire cities at once, which while he finds it impressive, he doesn't want to freeze an entire city just to fend off one attacker as he believes it would do more harm than good. He is often found practicing this power when he's alone to try and gain enough control to freeze a single opponent or a glass of water. This power also makes him resistant to cold.
• Energy Manipulation: This is his main attack. Sev has the ability to manipulate energy, primarily through either absorbing it or channeling it into constructs. He can’t actually create the energy himself, he can only move it. He can either create a directed blast or a construct. Constructs have to be fairly simple because it takes a lot of mental energy to keep them in shape, so he tends to stick with blades mostly. He can only sustain them for a limited amount of time because sustaining the constructs took energy. He could absorb energy to channel into the constructs, but it still took a certain amount of his own energy to maintain it. Once he absorbs energy though, he needs to do something with it, to channel it somewhere or else keeping the energy in his body will cause problems. At best, it'll mess with the control he has over his powers and at worst it could kill him.
• Concussive Blasts: This is a subpower of his Energy Manipulation. He's trained himself to be able to do a series of energy blasts in a row. He can only handle doing a limited number at a time. This requires a lot of mental focus and energy so he uses this only when he feels it is necessary.
• Forcefield Generation: Kunzite has the ability to create barriers and forcefields. Being a subpower of his Energy Manipulation, the barriers are created out of energy and can absorb the energy from attacks thrown at it. As the barriers absorb more energy, the energy then helps to reinforce and sustain it. However, being energy, these barriers are weak against strikes made by bladed weapons.
• Empathy Manipulation: As the knight of Virtue and Affection, Kunzite has the gift of Empathy. He can use this ability to know what's in a person's heart. Since this power is based in emotions, he can only get impressions at best which leaves a lot open to interpretation. For example, he might be able to tell someone is lying to him or hiding something, but not the truth behind it. This ability works better when he is physically near the person he's trying to read and even better if there is physical contact of some sort. He can also use this gift to help influence those around him. He can't create emotions, so he can't create compassion in a person that doesn't have any, but in a room full of negotiators, he can enhance the desire to understand the other side and the willingness to reach a beneficial agreement.
• Swordsmanship: With the return of his Ice Sword came the ability to use it. He trained back during the Silver Millennium and had been an expert swordsman.

History

Kunzite grew up with duty and expectation hanging over his head. His family claimed there was some distant connection to the royal family of Earth, but this was never proven. Regardless of if the claim of royal blood proved true, he was still born into a noble family. He was instructed in all manners and etiquette as both carry over into pretty much every aspect of life. Once it became apparent that he was a gifted empath, his future was set. His parents negotiated their own comfort, using him as their prized bull to sell. He was only a few years older than Prince Endymion, so it didn’t take long for someone to decide that he’d make a perfect bodyguard for the prince. Who better than an empath to make sure everyone around the prince was loyal to the crown?

They taught him how to fight, especially with a sword, and as his other powers showed themselves, he trained in how to use those. Learning to fight an opponent and possibly kill someone is not a straightforward thing for an empath. He had to learn how to close himself off, and it still tore at his own emotions every time. They gave him the title of Heavenly King and became the Knight of Virtue and Affection, but he never truly understood what it meant. As he came of age, they gave him another duty, to govern the nations in the Middle East. As the first of the Heavenly Kings, he became the leader when others joined him and was the primary bodyguard for Prince Endymion. He helped train the other Heavenly Kings and because of that he knew their strengths. They trained him to be the ultimate soldier, but knowing how to use the strengths of others was a talent of his own clever mind.

Many had seen the war with the Moon Kingdom brewing long before it happened. It was part of why it was so dangerous that the prince fell for the princess of the Moon Kingdom. He wasn’t about to let anything happen to his prince, even if it meant it shredded his heart and soul beyond repair. Never having received love or affection, he only had his sense of duty and loyalty, so those of the Dark Kingdom easily manipulated him. With his lack of training as an empath, he ended up being a valuable pawn the Dark Kingdom used to draw others to their side. In the end, it only cost him his life and everything he held dear.

Kunzite was reborn as Sevik Kincaid, the son of a Turkish woman and an American soldier. His early years were spent living in Turkey, but when his father’s tour in the Middle East was finished, the entire family moved to the United States, but for Sevik it seemed it was just another way he would not fit in. In Turkey he was an outcast. He was a halfbreed and the son of an unmarried woman. Even after arriving in America and seeing his parents get married, he was still an outcast. He was a foreigner. He sounded different from the other kids and did different things. Of course, it didn’t help that his family kept moving around every year or two as his dad was transferred to work on different army bases.

When he was in middle school, Sev’s family finally settled in a small town near Washington, DC. Sevik was glad to stay in one place for a while, at least enough to commit to getting involved with something other than his classes. He asked his dad to take a dance class, because he saw some of his classmates dance in a talent show and he thought it looked fun. His dad didn’t agree. No son of his was going to be some wimpy little pansy prancing about in tights. Instead, his father signed him up for Krav Maga. That way, if his son turned out as a pansy, he’d at least be able to take care of himself, or at least that’s the rationale he used. Sev was certain learning Krav Maga was meant to cure him of his sensitive nature. Of course, what his dad didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. He didn’t have any friends and had plenty of time on his hands while his parents worked. Thankfully, the owner of the dance studio let him work there cleaning and doing minor repairs as payment for classes.

As he got into high school, he finally made friends with one of few other male dancers in one of the group classes. He was obviously gay, so many people just assumed that he and Sev were dating, even though they weren’t. Being a small town, it didn’t take long for word to spread, and by the time his father heard about it, the damage had already been done. Everyone in town thought Sev was gay, but his father was more upset by that than he was. Sev was only focused on his dance. He focused so much that he sometimes forgot about the other parts of his life. Having seen how talented he was in the group classes, his dance teacher decided he’d benefit more from private lessons. He continued with his Krav Maga lessons, along with working at the dance studio and doing private dance lessons instead of group lessons. Between all that and school, he didn’t have time to think about dating anyone.

Sev was lucky enough to get a scholarship for studying dance in college. His focus was on contemporary dance as he liked the way it blended concepts from ballet, jazz and modern dance. After graduating, he moved to the city and ended up working two jobs just to pay rent while trying to attend auditions and dance in unpaid productions so he could pay his dues while building his resume. He kept feeling like something was missing. Whenever he mentioned it to the few friends he had, they insisted he was missing out on having a lover, so they set him up on dates, despite his protests. He had nothing against any of the men or women he was set up with, but he also couldn’t make it through an entire evening with any of them. This wasn’t helping to rid himself of the feeling like he should do something else, so he decided it was time to focus only on his career for the time being. It was while he was trying to make a life and a name for himself that the Dark Kingdom showed up again. He didn’t remember meeting the man that showed up before, but he recognized those green eyes immediately and let himself be lured in by the promise that he’d know what was missing soon enough.

He convinced himself that by fighting for the greater good of the planet, that he was finally fulfilling his destiny, but that seed of doubt remained. Something still wasn’t right. At first it started with brief flashes. Images that made little sense. He thought it was memories from the past that Beryl told him about. Then things didn’t make sense between what he saw and what Beryl told him. He made a dangerous call, sacrificing everything for the cause only to find out he’d been conned to the wrong side and fought against the one person he’d sworn to protect.

He was grateful that Prince Endymion kept his stone, along with those of the other kings. After the guilt of his betrayal, being able to do something useful for his prince once more made him glad. He wasn’t sure what sort of void they were in when they weren’t offering Endymion advice, but after everything, he wasn’t sure he had the right to know.

With 2020, came a resurrection, which surprised Sev, but not as much as everything else. First, not only had Endymion earned himself the title of king, but he forgave all four of the Heavenly Kings. Sev didn’t think he deserved that, nor did he think he deserved a place in King Endymion’s court. With his loyalty to Endymion renewed, he once again took his place serving as Endymion’s primary bodyguard. Slowly his duties expanded to include being ambassador to the Middle East and eventually the leader of the Kingsguard. After everything that happened, it took him a while to feel like he deserved any of it.

Helios also took pity on him and took him under his wing. Sev was a danger to himself and to others, as long as his empathic abilities went untrained. Thankfully, as a fellow empath, Helios showed him everything he should have been trained to do in the first place. It took time to sort through all the bad coping mechanisms he’d picked up between everything that they had put him through during the Silver Millennium and growing up with a father that never approved of his decisions didn’t help. Helios got Sev started on a meditation schedule that became a devoted routine. For the first time in two lifetimes, he finally had a way of grounding his emotions. He still earned himself a reputation for being icy because he still kept himself closed off from those around him, with very few exceptions, but for a change he felt calm, instead of feeling like he was screaming inside. Meditation gave him the ability to let go in the same way dance had for many years.

He considered contacting his parents, but decided against it. His parents didn’t seem to care about him after he went off to college, so why would that suddenly change now? Besides, he found a new family in Endymion, Helios and the other kings. Once he finally looked at things from that view, he finally felt like he was understanding what it was to be the Knight of Virtue and Affection.

Writing Sample

Sev rubbed the back of his neck and stretched his shoulders. He’d just finished a meeting with several delegates from the Middle Eastern countries. They were in the middle of doing some trade negotiations, and it was not going as well as Sev wished. It was yet another source of stress to add to the never-ending pile lately. Even with using his powers to calm the worst of the friction, these people did not want to bother trying to find common ground and if they didn’t have any desire to agree, there was only so much he could do to lead them to a compromise. It was draining as hell and he wasn’t sure how much of it he could take.

If things blew up any more than they already were, he might have to travel out there to meet with them in person. He was not looking forward to that being the case as he hated to leave the Crystal Palace right now, especially after the attack on Saariyah and with Jeremiah out of commission for the time being. He needed to stay near the King, and the Queen too, now more than ever.

He was headed back to his room. He needed a shower and a nice long meditation session after everything he’d just dealt with. If the whole situation wasn’t frustrating enough on its own, he could feel all the anger and frustration coming through from everyone else too. He wished there was more he could do, but without crossing lines he knew he shouldn’t, it was out of his hands. That was probably the most frustrating part. Sitting there with a neutral expression came easily to him. Between his past life and being a dancer, showing only what he wanted came as naturally to him as breathing. He had more trouble showing others what he was feeling than he did keeping it inside.

His breath caught in his throat when he heard piano music. Actually, that was an understatement. The emotion carried in the music nearly knocked him off his feet. He frowned and headed toward the music room. He held his breath until he peered into the music room and saw that familiar silver haired man sitting at the piano. Part of him wanted to be angry with Jeremiah for already being out of bed. His teammate needed rest, but as much as he wanted to yell, he just didn’t have it in him after hearing the sounds Jeremiah was extracting from the instrument.

Instead of yelling, he walked in and right over to the piano. His arms came up to embrace Jeremiah’s shoulders as he leaned in until his cheek came to rest against Jeremiah’s. “As glad as I am to see you up, you should probably still be in bed resting.” His tone was neutral, but he tightened his arms around Jeremiah, giving him a light squeeze. “How are you feeling?” He asked.